


Displacement

by Teaotter



Category: Leverage
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Drunk Sex, Drunkenness, F/M, Mild Consent Issues, identity play
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-29
Updated: 2011-09-29
Packaged: 2017-10-24 04:02:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/258776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teaotter/pseuds/Teaotter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Somehow, it makes a crazy kind of sense for Parker to dress up like his ex-wife and -- well, try to manipulate him somehow. Nate can't follow every twist and turn in her head, but at least he can see part of the game: Parker needs to get back at Sterling; she thinks she needs Nate to make it work.</p><p>Of course, she’s missing the part where Sterling beat Nate, too. Sterling and Blackpoole beat them all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Displacement

**Author's Note:**

> Imagine this is set in a never-happened point between _The First David Job_ and _The Second David Job_. Mild spoilers for the end of _The First David Job_.
> 
> Thanks to Amberite and Pegunicent for their beta efforts. Any remaining mistakes are mine alone.

Nate is slouched over the table in another faceless hotel room, staring at his empty glass and the mostly-empty bottle of whiskey he'd brought up from the hotel bar. His mind is unpleasantly cloudy; he's in that awkward stage of drunkenness where it's hard to know if drinking more will make it better or worse. He thinks at first that the wave of gardenia perfume is just part of the muzziness in his brain, a sense-memory from working with Maggie again. But his hallucinations have never before leaned over his shoulder to pour him another drink.

Nate blinks wearily, too tired to worry about someone invading his hotel room. The arms reaching around him are thin and pale, even against the barely-there blush of the linen jacket. He remembers that jacket. Maggie wore it to their fifth wedding anniversary party, the crisp lines formal and feminine in all the photos Nate kept from that night. It can't be Maggie, though. Not just because she'd never been able to sneak up behind him. No, the arm inside that sleeve is just a little too pale, the bones of the wrist just a little too deceptively fragile. Nate knows the fingers that are now holding his glass.

"Parker." Nate starts to sit up from his slouch, and stops when she doesn't move back. Another inch, and she'd be plastered across his shoulders. Her hair is already tickling the back of his neck, her breath warm against his ear. He is way too drunk to be dealing with Parker tonight, considering how angry she’d been after the David job went sour. "I thought we agreed. Six months?"

"Call me Maggie." Parker wraps Nate's fingers around the glass, and he takes it automatically. The whiskey burns all the way down, bracing and familiar. He still can't tell if he's drunk enough yet.

But somehow, it makes a crazy kind of sense for Parker to dress up like his ex-wife and -- well, try to manipulate him somehow. Nate can't follow every twist and turn in her head, but at least he can see part of the game: Parker needs to get back at Sterling; she thinks she needs Nate to make it work.

Of course, she’s missing the part where Sterling beat Nate, too. Sterling and Blackpoole beat them all.

"Maggie," Nate drawls, setting the empty glass down sharply, "never approved of my drinking."

"But I do." Parker hops up to sit on the cheap hotel table. Nate can see that she's wearing the whole outfit, the linen skirt suit trimmed with lace, the silk blouse so familiar from the pictures he's pored over every few months since Maggie left him. He likes to twist the knife, he can admit that, and seeing Parker in Maggie's clothes gives him that same thrill of guilt.

Parker curls her hands over the edge of the table, feet swinging happily for a moment before she remembers herself and crosses her legs at the knee. The move presses her bare legs against his upper arm, and for a moment all he can think is that she even found the shoes, the same shoes -- but of course, she didn't _find_ anything.

Nate shakes his head. "Did you really break into Maggie's apartment?"

Parker tilts her head to the side, blonde hair swinging as she studies his expression. Nate doesn't know if he wants the truth anyway. After a moment, a smile breaks out across her face, making her look years younger than she is. "Of course I did. Do you want to know what all I stole?" She re-crosses her legs deliberately, and it's all Nate can do not to look up her skirt when she does it.

"No." Nate pushes the chair back from the table to give himself some room to breathe. The smell of gardenias is overpowering. Scent is the most visceral sense, he knows, triggering memories and emotions the conscious mind would deny. He likes to think he'd handle this better sober, but this is Parker. She knows how to take advantage of an opponent's... vulnerability.

Parker pours the last of the whiskey in the glass, but doesn't hand it to him. Instead, she raises it to her own lips, throwing back the alcohol in three quick gulps. The light catches in the cut-crystal glass, shining through the amber liquid as it disappears. He can't help watching her throat as she swallows, and he knows he needs to get her out of here before anything else happens.

"Parker--"

She opens her eyes to glare at him. "Why won't you call me Maggie?"

"Because I'm not that far gone yet." The words fall out of his mouth before he thinks, but now that he's said them, he has to play them. Nate pushes himself unsteadily to his feet. "And we're out of whiskey. So --"

Parker's glare clears immediately. "I brought more."

Nate sighs, scrubbing a hand across his face for the burn the stubble lights on his fingers. "That's not the point."

"What is the point?" Parker is studying him again. "Should I be Sophie? I thought about that, but then I figured if you wanted Sophie, you'd already be sleeping with her, and you're not. So that leaves Maggie --"

It's a waterfall of words that Nate never wants to hear again. He wishes he never heard them in the first place. "Parker, no, wait --"

"-- because you're not the type of person who wants to have sex with strangers." Parker stops speaking suddenly and looks up at him. "I'm right about that, aren't I?"

Nate doesn't know if he wants to pat her on the head for reading him right or derail her for the sake of his own sanity. "You could try doing this as yourself."

"No." Her voice is firm. "I don't have sex with other people, not as me."

Nate blinks again, and wishes he'd let her open that new bottle. "So you _usually_ pretend to be someone else during sex."

"Yes!" Parker pauses. "Well, only during sex with other people."

Which at least establishes that she's had sex, something Nate was never sure about before. And the fact that he's thinking about Parker and sex in the same thought is not a good sign.

"Parker." Nate stops, because he doesn't even know what to say next.

"It's okay," she says. "I want -- no, I _need_ you to know it's okay."

Nate thinks he might never be sober enough to follow this conversation. "What's okay?"

"That you're not who you used to be." Parker smiles, and the expression makes Nate take a step back. It's a real smile, which for Parker means it looks like she's hurting and thinking about taking it out on the people around her. She edges closer, running her hands along the lapels of his jacket. "I know you hate it, that Maggie doesn't want you back -- but it means _we_ get to keep you."

Nate is too busy watching the anger in her eyes to see the move that ends with him flat on his back on the couch, with Parker straddling his lap. The room spins in its usual, comfortingly drunken fashion as he stares at the way her skirt is rucked up her thighs. The deep shadow between them is the only thing keeping him from knowing if she took Maggie's underwear, too. And damn it, he wants to know.

Parker starts unbuttoning his shirt methodically, face almost blank with concentration.

Nate finally finds his voice. "Parker. Stop."

"Maggie!" She slams a fist into his chest, startling a breath out of him at the force of the blow. "Why won't you call me Maggie?"

Nate closes his eyes. "Because I don't want Maggie." Sophie told him once that he was in love with his own guilt, and maybe that's sick but it's who he is. Sometimes, he’s even drunk enough to admit it.

"Oh." Parker freezes, and Nate looks up at her. The confusion on her face fades under frustration. "But --"

"Parker." Nate's voice is clipped, the voice he uses when he wants them to obey him, and she stops immediately. The alcohol props him up like an old friend now that he's made up his mind. "Get up on the back of the couch. Pull your skirt up to your waist and spread your legs as wide as you can."

Parker blinks at him, but she doesn't move. "You have a plan?"

"Yes, Parker." Nate doesn't blink, staring unwaveringly into her eyes and lying with all the confidence he has. "It's part of the plan."

She grins suddenly, wildly, and flips up to a handstand on the uneven cushions of the couch. She folds over until she's sitting on the back of the couch, skirt hiked up the way he asked. Her legs are spread, toes pointed to either end of the room. It's nothing Maggie could have done. Just Parker, and the thought that she doesn't _do_ this, doesn't _give_ this to anyone else -- makes him feel so very, very guilty. It's perfect.

Nate sits up, kneeling on the couch until his face is level with her crotch. He places his hands on her thighs and tries to brace himself. The panties are silk lace, just like the ones Maggie used to wear, and the smell of Maggie's laundry detergent mixes with the intimate smell of woman and perfume.

Nate lets his gaze wander slowly up the line of her body. Parker is gazing down at him happily, trustingly. "What's next?"

"Unbutton your blouse." Nate keeps his voice normal, as if he were talking her through a con. "Don't take it off! Just push it back so I can see the bra, too."

Parker's fingers move to comply. "It's Maggie's. The bra, I mean."

Nate groans softly. "I know." He grabs Parker's wrists when she starts to drop her hands after the last button. "Cup them. Show me how much the lace hides your skin."

Parker's brow wrinkles, but her hands slide immediately to her breasts. "But it doesn't."

"No, it doesn't."

"Oh."

Nate trails his fingers up her smooth thighs, imagining them marked red from the stubble on his cheeks. It’s a nice thought, but not the place to start.

His thumbs trace the edges of her panties, catching the hint of pale curls under the fabric. There’s dampness spreading there, dark against the rest of the silk. It's reassuring to see that; he wasn’t sure if Parker was having sex with him because she actually wanted to have sex. Not that he’d stop now, not unless she told him to. He’s pretty sure she knows she could say no. He is sure she could punch him in the face if he didn't stop fast enough, and that's going to have to be close enough to consent for tonight.

"Now." He doesn't raise his eyes from his thumbs, stroking slowly. "I'm going to pull your underwear aside and touch you, and every time I do something that feels like the way you touch yourself, I want you to moan for me."

"I don't." Parker's voice is suddenly uncertain, but she makes no move to push her thighs together.

Nate freezes, momentarily thrown. He didn’t think he’d read her wrong. "You don't touch yourself?"

"Not that," Parker answers, oblivious. "I don't make noise when I do it."

"You have to make noise." Nate relaxes, heat racing through him again. "It's part of the plan."

"Okay." When he glances up, her face is determined. She's obviously gearing herself up to try. For him.

Nate just breathes for a minute, letting the emotional spike settle into something less immediately dangerous. He can do this. He can walk her through having sex and they’ll both get off and it won’t have to mean anything at all. It’s just another exercise in trust.

His team. The faith they have in him, even when he’s failed them so badly.

Nate knows he’s a weak man. Even as he starts to slide his fingers against Parker’s slick folds, listening for the first hitch in her breathing, he knows it’ll happen again. And they’ll forgive him, and then it’ll happen _again_.

Because they need him to be what he pretends to be. And he... needs someone to believe the lie.

He doesn't know if that makes this less fucked up, or more. But Parker whimpers once as he presses harder, then moans loudly, a fake porn-star noise that makes Nate’s pulse speed up. "Good girl." He tries that stroke again, feeling her thighs tense against the couch. "Do it again."

Parker trusts him, and right now, that feeling -- that he just might be worth their trust -- right now that’s even better than the guilt.


End file.
